Contents. PAGE I. THE FLOWER DIAL; showing the Time of Opening and Closing of various Flowers ... II. INTRODUCTION; Flowers and their Teachings III.-FLOWER LANGUAGE IN BOUQUETS 4 V. VOCABULARY OF FLOWERS. Part I. With a Com plete Collection of Quotations from the English Poets, illustrative of Various Sentiments ... ... 17 Showing the Time of Opening and Closing of various Flowers. Look at the fate of summer flowers, Which blow at daybreak, droop ere evensong: Is not so long!-WORDSWORTH. THE FLOWERS. Goat's Beard CLOSING TIME. AFTERNOON. H. M. 9 10 Late-flowering Dandelion......... 12 I .Hawkweed Pricris......... .Alpine Hawk's Beard Wild Succory....... ........... Naked-stalked Poppy .Copper-coloured Day Lily .........Smooth Sowthistle........ ...... Blue-flower Sowthistle ....Field Bindweed ......... O 12 O 9 550 2 O 3 2 9 10 Introduction. FLOWERS AND THEIR TEACHINGS. There's odour in the very name Is but a rainbow-type of life S we turn over the leaves of the great book of nature, and examine the bright-hued, gracefully-formed, and perfume-haunted characters inscribed thereon; when we muse upon the beautiful and holy thoughts, the refined fancies, and the tender and pleasant memories associated therewith; we cannot fail to acknowledge gratefully the wisdom and goodness of Him who has scattered them so plentifully over the face of the earth, for man's pleasure and instruction. Well and truly has it been said that "stars are the flowers of heaven," even as "flowers are the stars of earth;" and when those beautiful adorners of our terrestrial and transitory abidingplace are all withered and dead, then, as though to compensate for their loss, and to lift our hearts to the contemplation of higher and holier things than can be met with here, do the number and radiance seem to increase of those shining forms that sprinkle the expanse of that celestial realm where we are taught to look for our everlasting habitation. It was only natural, that from an early period, and throughout all lands, flowers should have been chosen as emblems of thoughts and sentiments, and invested with a language of their own. Round many a flower beautiful thoughts cluster, and even He who was Lord of all, did not disdain, in the lessons He taught, to use as illustrations of great truths, the Lilies that toil not, neither do they spin; the Grape that cannot be gathered from the Thorn; and the Wheat that shall be gathered in at the great harvest. Among the many legends connected with the flower language, the following may be cited: The Daisy is taken by old Geoffrey Chaucer as the type of beauty and admirable virtue, being the very flower into which the fair Queen Alceste-who sacrificed her own life to preserve that of her husband-was changed. No pilgrim, bending at the shrine of the saint whom he considered the most holy and worthy of adoration, ever offered more devout homage than did the "father of English poetry" to this little "Day's Eye," or "Eye of Day," as he loved to call it." The Almond Tree has been made the emblem of hope and also of vigilance; it belongs to the same family as the Peach; it flourishes luxuriantly in Syria, and sacred writers frequently derive from it very striking metaphors. We are told in Numbers, that Aaron's rod was taken from the Almond Tree. In Dryden's Virgil" it is made an emblem of promise. Violets are historical flowers, and poetical legends innumerable are woven about them. Milton makes Echo dwell "By slow Meander's margent green And in the Violet-embroider'd vale." Prosperpine was gathering Violets as well as Narcissi, when seized by Pluto; Ia, the daughter of Atlas, fleeing into the woods from the pursuit of Apollo, was changed into a Violet ; the nymphs, who waited on Endymion, in Keats's beautiful legend, "Rain'd Violets upon his sleeping eyes; " and in the floral ceremonies of the ancient Greeks, as well as Romans, this flower ever had a conspicuous place; while among the comparatively modern French troubadours, a golden Violet was the prize of the successful competitor in the lists of song. The Hawthorn is a tree around which many legends of flower language are woven. The young Athenian girls, we are told, brought branches of it to decorate the altar of wedlock, and those who were about to plight their vows there. It was the emblem of Hope, too; and surely that is a hopeful time, when the first vow of love is poured into the ear of the bashful, blushing, yet not unwilling maiden. Goldsmith describes "The Hawthorn-bush, with seats beneath the shade, The Hyacinth has been made emblematical of play or game. There was an annual solemnity, called Hyacinthia, held at Anyclæ, in Laconia, which lasted three days. According to an ancient fable, the flower originated in the blood of Ajax, who stabbed himself because the arms of Achilles were given to Ulysses and not to him. "As poets feigned, from Ajax' streaming blood One of the most calumniated of plants is the Foxglove. As a poisonous plant, this is shunned and disliked by many who do not know or consider that it possesses very useful medicinal properties, teaching us that God hath made nothing but for some wise end. Miss Pardoe has attached a fine moral to this plant. She says: "The foxglove, springing from amid the rocky masses by the wayside, is like virtue struggling with adversity, and seeming doubly beautiful from the contrast.' The pretty little Forget-me-not has been transplanted by Miss Strickland from the dubious light of legendary song into the broad sunshine of veritable history. She says: "This royal adventurer-the banished and aspiring (Henry of) Lancasterappears to have been the person who gave the Forget-me-not its emblematical and poetical meaning, by uniting it, at the period of his exile, with the initial letters of his watchword, Souveigne vous de moi; thus rendering it the symbol of remembrance, and, like the subsequent fatal roses of York and Lancaster, and Stuart, the lily of Bourbon, and the violet of Napoleon, an historical flower." It is a beautiful and graceful little plant, with its slender stem, and oblong leaves of a pale semi-transparent |